All That Mullarkey (5 page)

Damn it to soddery, of course Gav had bought it for her. She tried to be dismissive. ‘It’s already out of guarantee, the shop would be mega-expensive. Yes … I love you, too.’ She hoped. When the guilt and the anger were over, she was sure she’d find she still loved him.

Glancing at her watch, rapidly she dialled Liza at the treatment centre, who, bless her bless her bless her, wasn’t engaged with a client’s bare feet and was able to answer her phone. Cleo heaved a sigh of relief to hear her calm, ‘Hiya!’

‘Oh Liza!’ Suddenly she wanted a huge, cleansing cry, had to dig her nails into her palms to stop herself from bursting into loud, sisterly boo-hoos. ‘If anyone asks,
particularly
Gav, I spent Friday night with you, OK? I was upset and you spent the whole time getting me drunk and wiping my tears. Can you do that?’

‘Of course,’ Liza agreed promptly. ‘But what’s going on?’

Cleo checked her watch again. ‘I’ll ring you later to explain. And
definitely
don’t try me on my mobile! And will you come with me this Friday evening to Muggie’s?’

‘What, Muggie’s in Bridge Street? I go there all the time.’

Cleo fought down sobs again. ‘Pity you weren’t there last Friday. None of the horrible mess would’ve happened!’

‘Ah.’ Liza sounded satisfied. ‘I met this farmer’s son …’

Cleo broke in hastily. The client would be complaining to Nathan if she left her team much longer. ‘Just come with me this Friday, OK? Promise?’

Liza promised. ‘As long as you tell me then what’s going on.’

The heavy hand on Justin’s shoulder made him jog his drink. He flicked at the splashes on his jacket.

Martin grinned. ‘Sorry, mate. New phone?’

Justin looked at the petite folding mobile phone in his hand. ‘I’m just minding it for a bit.’ While Martin caught the barman’s eye and Drew pressed up beside them in the crush, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his drainpipe jeans, Justin slipped the phone into his pocket.

‘Thanks.’ He accepted the drink that Martin passed him.

Drew drank half his lager in one long slurp, then burped. ‘On your own? No lady of the lake?’

Justin shook his head.

‘Still seeing her?’

The cold beer was good, tightening his throat on the way down with its iciness. He shook his head again. ‘There was the little matter of a husband.’ He had to raise his voice; the pub was filling up.

Martin and Drew showed him matching surprised expressions. Drew’s brows descended – ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

‘Kind of. She said he’d cleared off. I didn’t realise she meant the day before, until she went home to see if he’d turned up.’ Justin wiped the bottom of his glass on the bar and remembered, belatedly, how, a couple of years ago, a girlfriend of Drew’s had lied about her marital status. Drew had only discovered the truth when the husband had come after him with fists swinging. Drew had been hurt in more ways than one.

‘Bad scene.’ Drew’s black look suggested that he was remembering, too. ‘You don’t need that kind of aggro. She should’ve told you. You liked her. She looked top in the wet T-shirt, by the way. Shame she had to be so troublesome.’

‘Certainly is.’ Justin thought of Cleo, ringing on her own phone, the one in his pocket. Wary, apologetic, worried. Defensive. If she and her old man had got it back together, she’d be mostly worried. He thought about her naked on his bed, in his arms. Taking the phone out again, he switched it off to preserve the battery. Friday would be interesting.

Cleo and Gavin had been invited to midweek supper at Keith and Dora’s Tudor-look posh pad in a cul-de-sac of other posh pads in Orton Longueville. When they arrived, Rhianne and Ian were already settled with glasses of wine while Will and Roland, their overactive sons, raced circuits through doors and up and downstairs.

Cleo felt edgy and uneasy. She ought to be cheerful and relaxed, letting Dora, plump and smiling, take their jackets, Keith deliver glasses of wine held exaggeratedly high as he stepped over his kids, Meggie and Eddie. Roland and Will whizzed past again, flying two of Meggie’s dolls alongside them, howling, ‘Super-doll!’ and ‘Bat-doll!’

Probably it was the kids being so noisy that was winding her up. From the start, she and Gav had agreed not to have kids. All their friends had embraced the horrendous-sounding sacrifices of sleep, money and leisure and putting the children first.

For the first time, Cleo wondered why their close friends were people with families. Cleo and Gav were so determinedly childfree; it didn’t make sense.

Meggie, poor soul, began tugging at Dora. ‘Mummy ...’ Pointing sorrowfully at her undignified dollies. Dora sighed and looked at Rhianne.

‘’S all right, Meggie,’ Rhianne responded unhelpfully, ‘it’s only ’cos they’re boys.’

Ian mumbled into his glass of red, ‘Boy-devils.’

Keith, Gav and Ian began discussing Wimbledon.

Dora and Rhianne turned to their favourite topic – children. ‘That little Davie boy’s got worms, so I’m keeping Meggie off playgroup for a week. It was nits a fortnight ago.’ They were an unlikely pairing: Rhianne so slender and invariably carefully painted before ever facing the outdoor world; Dora reminding Cleo irresistibly of a giant schoolgirl, fresh-faced and clumsy.

Cleo, pretending to listen, watched Gav. Smiling, talking, laughing, arguing. Sipping wine, nodding. Gav, apparently, had returned from whatever planet he’d been on.

The conversation moved on to money – Keith complaining about the pressures of earning loads, Ian bitter about the pressures of not earning enough.

As Roland and Will raced by once more with Meggie’s favourite dolls, now naked and with their hair stuck together in clumps, Meggie tugged Dora’s trouser leg, eyes melting with tears. ‘Mummy …!’ Dora smiled uneasily and whispered about guests.

The little girl’s shoulders drooped and Cleo wondered how Dora could bear to let her agonise like that over her much-loved dolls. As Roland and Will raced past on their fortieth irritating lap, she stuck out her arm. ‘Give the dolls to Meggie, please,’ she said, quietly.

Roland, after a stunned moment, gave Bat-doll back to an awed Meggie. But Will ran at Cleo and slapped her leg.

Unmoved, Cleo raised her eyebrows. ‘
Give
the doll to Meggie,
please
.’

Will threw Super-doll sulkily in Meggie’s direction.

Several seconds passed. Rhianne stared at Cleo as if correcting her boys’ behaviour was a totally foreign concept. ‘Never mind, boys, go and get Coke from the kitchen.’

Keith, no doubt thinking about his carpets, rose reluctantly. ‘Best if I help them.’

Smiling sweetly, Cleo said, ‘Yes, do hype them up with sugar. Lovely.’

Uncertainly, Rhianne tittered. ‘Are you practising to be a parent or something?’

Chapter Five

‘I want to try tantric sex. It’s a deeply gratifying experience, apparently.’ Rhianne had finished eating long before the others – if she was going to imbibe huge numbers of calories she generally drank them. She twirled her wine glass and looked around expectantly.

Ian was only halfway through his mound of pepperpot stew and talked through a mouthful. ‘Very twentieth-century of you, darling! I suppose you’ve read an old magazine article in the hairdresser’s and suddenly you’re an expert. A three-day build-up to a bit of the other? Between Roland wetting the bed and Will getting up at half five to watch telly, I suppose?’

Rhianne admired her long, almond-shaped nails. Cleo knew Rhianne actually had a favourite nail, the most elegant and perfect. ‘Who changes Roland’s bed? And what do you know about Will getting up at dawn? You’re still snoring.’

Cleo watched Roland and Will listen to their parents bicker, exchanging conspiratorial glances as their names came up. Now that Meggie and Eddie were in bed, the older boys had quietened enough to watch Cartoon Network eek-zing-pow-banging on the television.

Rhianne pursed perfectly orange lips unspoilt by contact with her wine glass, crinkling her full-face make-up. She lifted one long, thin, shiny-orange-nailed hand, palm up. ‘We could make time.’

Ian smothered a belch. ‘OK. You spend an hour stroking me. I’ll watch Match of the Day.’

‘The idea is to lavish attention on each other, Ian! We need an intimacy space to retire to where we can breathe each other’s breath and harmonise –’

Cleo stared down at her plate. Must they keep talking about sex? All her problems were because of sex.

What was sex after all? An urge to be gratified? An expression of love and intimacy? Or a weapon?

‘Your wife’s asleep, Gav.’

She lifted her eyes to see all faces turned towards her. ‘Sorry – did I miss something?’

Gav smiled at her. ‘You OK?’

‘Tired, that’s all.’ She managed a smile in return. Tired of listening to variations of the same old, same old, that was for sure. Ian complaining about Rhianne; Rhianne wanting something more than she had. Keith a world-weary wage slave; Dora a put-upon domestic slave.

Cleo wondered again why she and Gav were part of this group. In fact
Gav, Keith
and
Ian
were friends – Cleo, Dora and Rhianne were the women that they’d married. Expected to become part of a set that spent a significant portion of their time together because the men were friends.

And what happened when Cleo wanted to see her old college friends? Gav threw a wobbler and declared an end to the marriage.

Sometimes, it seemed as if there was only Liza there for Cleo. How had that happened?

Frustration swelled inside her and suddenly she experienced a fierce and unexpected longing to be like Liza. Answerable to no one.

Gav settled on his side under the crisp comfort of the duvet as Cleo climbed into bed in his favourite tumble-haired, unmade-up, clothes-discarded, bedtime state. He ran his thumb up the inside of her bare arm. ‘Mmm, all that talk of sex …’

But there was no answering sexy smile or twinkling eye. No dive into his arms, no delicious wriggle. Instead, she sighed her way under the duvet, well on her own side of the bed, and shut her eyes. ‘I’m really tired.’

Gav laughed incredulously. ‘For crying out loud, when have we ever been too tired for sex?’ He ran his hand gently across her breasts.

She opened her eyes. ‘I’m too tired for anything.’ And shut them again.

‘This isn’t like you!’ He shunted across the empty sheet between them, confident he could get her going. He nuzzled his face into her neck, kissing, nibbling, humming, ‘Mmm-mmm!’

Instead of rolling back her head, arching her neck to his mouth, coming alive in his arms, Cleo twitched slightly. ‘Not tonight, Gav.’

‘Why not?’ Not a very cool reaction but he was in uncharted territory. When had Cleo ever refused him?

Cleo sighed. ‘Because I’m tired, OK? These few days have been exhausting. I’ve just got into bed and the last thing I need is to get out, mess about with the cap and the spermicide, then reverse the whole performance in the morning!’ She rolled onto her side, her back to him.

A still moment before he slid away. ‘I told you it was better when you were on the pill.’

‘Pill or cap, you don’t have to take responsibility, do you?’

He opened his mouth to demand whether she really wanted to try condoms, to him the armoury of the uncommitted, had a sudden nasty suspicion that she might suggest a vasectomy, which was unthinkable, and shut it again.

So. She was still angry. He’d thought they’d made up but she was obviously still punishing him in the peculiar woman-way of reacting to injuries at a later, unconnected date. He decided to be dead cool and understanding. He stroked her shoulder. ‘You’ll get used to the cap, and you won’t feel so negative. I just wanted …’

Cleo twitched from under his hand. ‘I understand what you “just wanted”! But I don’t happen to want the same. OK?’

Chapter Six

The lights were the same, and the music. Cleo clutched a single, cold, restrained bottle of Budweiser and watched the crowd. Liza hovered loyally beside her in a tiny gold dress with a broad black belt that sat just below her breasts, a glass of black absinthe over ice in her hand. The atmosphere in Muggie’s was so hot and moist that even though she, too, wore a short strappy dress, Cleo felt cooked.

Last Friday she hadn’t realised the place sprawled so far, rambling off between pillars and around corners. Or just how many people could cram into those spaces.

‘Quarter past nine.’ Cleo sighed. She was tired of gazing over the mass of heads for the giveaway spiky hair. ‘Maybe he’s not coming. Maybe I won’t see him again. That’ll be OK, that’ll be fine. I can pretend the phone’s lost and get another with a new number. I should’ve done that in the first place. Then I wouldn’t have to be here.

‘And I could’ve avoided another squabble with Gav this morning when I told him I was going straight to yours after work and would stay over until tomorrow.’

Liza, considering she’d never before displayed antipathy towards her brother-in-law, was unflatteringly fast with it, now. ‘Gav’s being an arse.’ She thought for a moment and added, honestly, ‘But, this Justin thing – it’s so not like you, Cleo.’